Funimation used to be the worst of the three, but since they launched their Roku app, I've been pretty happy with their service. Unfortunately, they still have a ways to go. Sometimes I will tune my Roku to the Funimation channel and none of the videos will play. Everything goes down at once. This is usually temporary, at least, and the customer service is pretty good. They respond to you if you send them an e-mail. When the Roku channel is working, the HD streams are very nice to look at. I've never been all that happy with their streaming on a computer. If I didn't have Roku, I probably wouldn't subscribe year round.

So the Funimation Roku app has been working well for you lately (i.e., the past several days)?

It has gotten so slow in loading and in responding to button presses when navigating and selecting shows that I gave up for the time being and went back to using my computer. Based on the posts in the forum, I'm not alone.

There has been a few occasions where nothing loads at all. I've e-mailed Funimation about it and they always respond. Usually it is some server problem or server maintenance. Much better customer service than TAN, where they don't seem to have any particular staff assigned to the online streaming portion of their "business" at all.

My experience with the Funimation Roku app has been positive for the most part. I was just on there the night before last streaming Fujiko Mine. The HD streams were loading fine and the feed was smooth with no stuttering or stalling.

I only have problems with TAN when I'm running on a slow internet connection. The audio rolls on perfectly, but the video will skip frames and get off track. That said, it only happens when I'm using the internet connection at my job. At home, the only thing I dislike is the yellow subtitles. Funimation's player works very well when it works. Once or twice a month, though, I won't be able to access their site, or their videos won't load for me. Not a huge deal, but still a bit annoying. Crunchyroll is incredibly reliable -- I think I only get a problem with the site 3-4 times a year. I've found Hulu is even more reliable, but the video quality isn't as good, and you're required to watch commercials.

I only use CR and torrent the rest.
Funimation blocks pretty much all their videos in England so I dont think it is worth a subscription.
As for TAN their site in England has all of 6 series on it and they are not even current series.
I dont feel that I should have to pay for those 2 subs and then pay for a VPN so I can access the damn things anyway.
I like CR because it is the best and tries to get the simulcasts to places besides the USA and even then there is an easy way to get the US stuff without a VPN so it is irrelevant.
Ok rant over.

I only use CR and torrent the rest.
Funimation blocks pretty much all their videos in England so I dont think it is worth a subscription.
As for TAN their site in England has all of 6 series on it and they are not even current series.
I dont feel that I should have to pay for those 2 subs and then pay for a VPN so I can access the damn things anyway.
I like CR because it is the best and tries to get the simulcasts to places besides the USA and even then there is an easy way to get the US stuff without a VPN so it is irrelevant.
Ok rant over.

Couldnt have said it better myself.

Anyways have anyone here ever tried hulu? So far it seems CR is the only good one.

I agree that Funimation site is not exactly user friendly (at least to me), I cancelled my elite membership with them and am staying with CR exclusively. Been here going on 4 years and am loving it. I do wish there were more legit sites out there, so I can search for off-the-wall or little known anime, but, oh well, such is life.

I tried TAN just recently, and as a guest user watched the first episode of Psychic Squad (thinking I might want to watch the whole thing before watching spin-off The Unlimited here on CR). The viewing experience was fine (though as I was using it as a Guest, it probably wasn't HD). Fine enough that I decided I'd try out a "free membership" and if that went well, pay for a subscription for a month or two to watch that and a couple other things.

However, although there was a link that clearly stated it was for free trial, it seemed to lead to the regular paid subscription sign-up. Once there, there was no indication of free-trial length; no indication that if you put in your payment information you would only be charged after the free trial. There were a few questions on their forums related to subscriptions and free trials, but I didn't see answers to any of them. So I wrote to them asking. That was over a week ago and I still haven't heard back.

That lack of response would never happen on CR (and not just because Bjaker is just that awesome, as of course he is). Come on, you've got potential paying customers asking a very reasonable question that could lead to them buying your service, and you just ignore it? I don't think much of TAN after that experience.

1) whatever they use for streaming is AWFUL. I don't know if it buffers at all sometimes, can be exceptionally skippy, specially in HD
2) when I was trying to actually start a paid subscription it took weeks, and I never did get a response from them when I emailed/tweeted/etc over my problem.

good sides:

1) They have a pretty good selection (although with a huge overlap with CR), and for somebody that doesn't do torrents or fansubs, thats invaluable.
2) I, well, recently got robbed and had to stop my card like the day before my payment was due. I still haven't gotten a new one (tomorrow hopefully!) and they've given me plenty of slack with not freezing my account.

I tried TAN just recently, and as a guest user watched the first episode of Psychic Squad (thinking I might want to watch the whole thing before watching spin-off The Unlimited here on CR). The viewing experience was fine (though as I was using it as a Guest, it probably wasn't HD). Fine enough that I decided I'd try out a "free membership" and if that went well, pay for a subscription for a month or two to watch that and a couple other things.

However, although there was a link that clearly stated it was for free trial, it seemed to lead to the regular paid subscription sign-up. Once there, there was no indication of free-trial length; no indication that if you put in your payment information you would only be charged after the free trial. There were a few questions on their forums related to subscriptions and free trials, but I didn't see answers to any of them. So I wrote to them asking. That was over a week ago and I still haven't heard back.

That lack of response would never happen on CR (and not just because Bjaker is just that awesome, as of course he is). Come on, you've got potential paying customers asking a very reasonable question that could lead to them buying your service, and you just ignore it? I don't think much of TAN after that experience.

I have this suspicion that there are no actual .... people .... monitoring the internet side of their business. I think the trial period is only for two weeks. You have to manually end your subscription after that period or they will automatically start charging your card. If you go to the forums for help, you will get users, not anyone who actually gets paid money for monitoring their site. Shoddy operation, IMO. They are actually getting free help from these users, who pay for their membership. Talk about unprofessional.

I am sick of TAN, and want to cancel. But my sister, who hates ads even more than I do, keeps paying for it even though she only uses it occasionally.

I use crunchy (of course) and Hulu. My only beef with Hulu is that I pay for the service, and in one episode of anime, I have to watch four sets of commercials. One to start, then I get thru the intro, and the opening plays.... Then commercial... Seriously, its 5 min of anime bookended by commercials. Then two more before the episode ends.

Hulu has other anime than Funi stuff though, plus all their other shows. I consider it a good buy.

I hate to sound like a Crunchyroll shill by complaining about their competitors. But I've had a ridiculously awful experience with that site.

I found that subscribing there was the only way to be able to watch a legal stream of HD quality Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai, so I bought a subscription from them.

After that every time I would go to log in there and watch anime, the site would be so slow that it was practically broken. After several days of not being able to access their site at all I decided I wanted to cancel my subscription. But I couldn't do that because I couldn't even log into my own account there due to how ridiculously slow it was. I literally had to wait 15 minutes to even get into their login page.

Anyways I tried again at a time of day that generally has less web traffic (like 4 AM) and managed to cancel it. I got an email from them stating that I would be able to keep watching anime on my account until my payment period ended (at this point I had only been active for 2 weeks out of the month) and that's all well and good. Then I look at my account and I see that I'd been reduced to a regular user. I tested it out and saw that I had no access to subscription content.

They stole 15 days of subscription access from me, and now after a couple of days of waiting they still haven't even replied to my email inquiries about the matter. I don't even know if any actual humans even work there.

Their customer service is so abysmal I think that any studio that actually chooses to license their anime there is completely out of their minds. Their only saving grace must just be the business that they do with various cable companies. Doesn't do me any good though since we only have Comcast here and they don't deal with them at all.

So am I just unlucky or do other people also have issues with that site? Is Crunchyroll really the best thing on the block? Aside from Hulu and Netflix, the only other legal streaming site I've tried has been Funimation. But they're so in bed with Hulu now that I may as well just be on the Hulu site instead :P

their player sucks, I have never been able to watch a video on their site and not have it stop to buffer even on high speeds. I gave up their HD a long time ago.

Their simulcast catalog is small and it is usually a delaycast. They tend to add anime that is really old and already been on other sites.
Customer service takes forever to respond to the point of months having elapsed.
Subscriptions are a nightmare at least in my experience
Thier site is glitchy and their log on system never fails to piss me off some how.

I think once the diasuki service goes live TAN might be forced out of the arena. I don't see them being able to compete like funi and CR. The way I see it The anime Network feels like it is the hobby of one guy and not a real business. Although I pretty sure it is not...

Well at least they didn't charge you for a subscription you never ordered like I found out yeasterday!

I bought a 3-month subscription in order to watch Tamako Market. Only issue I had was trying to figure out how to actually subscribe. After that my experience has been just dandy. Also watched the first season of Phi Brain on there with no problems.